Shoppers Walk, Irmo

Small moves, big difference.

The cottage shops on St. Andrews Rd already have what most of Irmo doesn’t: a cluster of small, charming buildings you could walk between. What they don’t have is a center. Today the front of the block is a parking lot behind a highway guardrail, and most people drive from one door to the next.

On the Lexington County parcel map, the lot in front of the porch building is labeled “Town of Irmo.” This concept imagines the front of that lot as a village green, a front porch for the whole block.

• Village green: grass, shade trees, tables and string lights, with a small bandstand for music and markets.
• Brick wall and hedge in place of the guardrail, with an opening so you can walk in from the sidewalk.
• Brick walkway linking the porch building, the cottages and the dormer-row shops, with crosswalks at the drive aisles.
• Porch café: seating on the porch building’s wraparound porch, facing the green.
• Gateway sign naming the shops, and village lamps along St. Andrews.

Rough cost: about $150,000–$400,000 for the green, walkway and wall, mostly on the lot labeled for the Town. Storefront improvements by owners would be separate. About half of the Town lot stays as parking behind the green.

Building positions come from the county parcel map and aerial photos. Colors, windows and signs are approximate, and the tenant names on the sign are placeholders.